Try-Out Tuesday: Green Cleaning
In our Outermost House, the sun is stretching out, lengthening our days and swapping up the snow for the snowdrops. February just become March and whiffs of spring air. This time of year usually asks for some dusting off of winter habits — a shake up and wake up call. Nature has already started to show signs of its transition. Buds are appearing, flooded plains are showing signs of drying up and birds are definitely breaking the lock down rules!
Green Cleaning Tips with Nancy Birtwhistle
Trying to remove that pesky carpet stain or clean your oven without using environmentally harmful products? Nancy…
Many of us must still endure months of folding time into the home — distanced from loved ones but supposedly gifted with extra hours to get on top of our household jobs. Despite the extra-ordinary time in our homes, my relationship with dust is still to be settled. If you have been anything like me, daydreams of freedom and face to face friendships, have replaced dusting as the go-to procrastinator.
That said, as we phase into spring, my ‘to do’ list looks a little fresher. Tidying up is my way out of winter and I am finding some planet-friendly hacks to revitalise my ‘Spring Clean.’ Bearing in my mind that nature’s best solvent is water — I want to keep my cleaning as green as possible. Thanks to Nancy Birtwhistle’s new book ‘Clean and Green: 101 Hints and Tips for a more Eco-Friendly Home’, I am excited by the idea of making my own cleaning products. Could bring some fun to the kids’ homeschooling too!
Own your packaging — reuse and refill.
Birtwhistle admits to having once considered synthetic solutions superior to those more natural but with her 9 grandchildren's futures in mind, she has had a rethink! Dispirited by the harm our habits of easy replacement is having on our planet’s health, her book inspires simple swaps for a more sustainable household clean. No more reaching for bleach, no harmful chemicals, no scrubbing and scraping and whole lot less effort! Totel.ly champions everyday magic — dusting off the lockdown blues without dusting the natural world.
Recipes connect us with everyday natural cleaning remedies, reaching for the greenery in our gardens and the staples in our stored cupboards. Some recipes will take you back to the wisdom of the 1970s -with bicarbonate of soda being the star ingredient. Others will see you boiling conkers to create creamy cleaners or snipping ivy to concoct your own washing detergent. You might find yourself rubbing out oven stains with grass! Nancy irons with rainwater, claiming it to be softer than hard tap water — kinder to our cloths and our iron! Simple yet significant!
Ivy Detergent
Citric acid, surgical spirit and sodium percarbonate (green bleach) feature in all manner of green clean tonics — all budget friendly and, although not entirely benign, water down the drain without costing the Earth. Bulk buying is how to begin, but after that, Birtwhistle assures that this is not an expensive change. Replacing your ingredients in refill stores keeps the single use packaging out of the loop and gives us greater agency as we shop. These small steps aim to revitalise our house — inside and most definitely outside. Clean and Green is to be released in April 2021 and totel.ly can not wait to get going!
Bulk Buying designs out waste!
Perhaps you have your own homemade planet-compassionate remedies? We’d love to know!
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